Broken Pedestal
by Scrawlers
Summary: Neku finds the Secret Reports, and reacts about as well as you would expect. The problem is, Hanekoma really wasn't lying about everything.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own The World Ends With You or any of its properties.

**Notes: **This was written forever ago as a response to a prompt on tumblr. After deciding to update my FF.N account with something, I decided to have a trial run with this. As a final note, this was originally going to be part of Guardian, but that never happened so . . . here it is, alone. (Though for those of you who remember that fic, you can still place this firmly in that universe, proposed adoption and all.)

* * *

><p><strong>Broken Pedestal<strong>

* * *

><p>"It was you. It was you the whole time."<p>

Neku wasn't yelling yet. In any other situation that may have been a good thing, but the word _'yet' _still hung in the air, taut and ready to explode. Sanae could see it in the rigidness of Neku's shoulders, in the tight curl of Neku's fingers around the papers he held in his hands, in the wild brightness of his eyes. Neku wasn't one to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation like Beat, but that just made his eventual explosions that much worse. Sanae didn't have to ask for clarification, and he knew that playing dumb would only make the situation worse. He put his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah. It was."

Neku already knew the truth—Sanae had already told him as much, albeit inadvertently, in writing—but he still looked like he'd been suckerpunched the second the words left Sanae's mouth. Neku exhaled, sharp and breathless, before he forced his mouth shut with a snap, and fury began building with the disbelief and betrayal in his eyes.

"I don't believe this. This whole thing has been a lie."

Sanae furrowed his brow. "Excuse me?"

"This whole time, you let me believe that you gave a damn about me. I thought—I thought you actually cared—"

"Phones, c'mon. Don't start with that," Sanae said. "You know I care—"

"Bullshit! If you cared, you wouldn't have done any of this in the first place!" To accentuate his point, Neku shook the papers in the air. Sanae had no response to that, and in the wake of his mini explosion, it seemed to take Neku a moment to collect himself. He ducked his head into the collar of his sweatshirt and took several deep, shaking breaths, curling a tight fist around the papers he held. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter, but also that much more bitter. "I trusted you. I trusted you with everything. I never once thought for a second that you—but you did. It was you. It was always you." Neku looked back up, his eyes burning. "You're the one that taught the Grim Heaper how to sic Taboo Noise on us. You're the one that fixed the refinery so that Taboo Noise were everywhere during Week Three. You're the one that helped Pi-Face come back in the first place, and you—you knew everything the entire time! You knew everything and you never said a word!"

"You know why I couldn't tell you."

"But what about the rest of it?" Neku demanded. It seemed that once he'd gotten started, he couldn't stop; his words tumbled out in a rush. "What about the Taboo Noise, and Pi-Face? What about that? He tried to _erase _me! His Taboo Noise almost did, multiple times! Did you care about any of that?"

"Of course I did."

"Then why? Why did you do it, Mr H?" By this point, the damning papers in Neku's hand were crushed so badly that he'd torn little holes in them with his nails, but he didn't seem to notice. "Why did you help the Grim Heaper? Why did you sic him and his Taboo Noise on me over and over again?"

"You read the Reports. You know why," Sanae said, and when Neku didn't answer—when he continued to glare at Sanae with eyes like mini storms—Sanae clarified, "It was to protect Shibuya."

Neku snorted. "Right. Because anything flies so long as your plan succeeds."

Sanae raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying you're more important than an entire city? I thought we were past that phase, Phones. Didn't you agree to expand your world?"

"Don't screw with me," Neku snapped, and his eyes sharpened into an even fiercer glare than they had been before. "You know damn well what I mean. You used me. You didn't care what happened to me so long as you got what you wanted. I was just another tool to make sure that happened, just like I was to Joshua." Neku reached for the headphones around his neck with his free hand, though he didn't tug them on; instead, he let his hand linger on the earpiece, and huffed a mirthless laugh. "But you know, it's fine. Whatever. I've come to expect it by now. Whether it's my foster parents, or Joshua, or you, I'm used to the whole being manipulated, lied to, and used thing." Neku tossed the Secret Reports onto the coffee table, and looked up with eyes that Sanae was alarmed to see had actually filled with tears. "I just wish you'd been honest with me about it from the start, so that I wouldn't have wasted my time."

"Neku—" Sanae reached out as Neku brushed past him, but Neku shrugged his hand off, tugging his headphones over his orange spikes. "Neku!" Sanae's voice was lost to techno noise filtering out from Neku's headphones, and by the time Neku reached the stairs that headed down to the café proper, he was running.

Sanae reached for his phone, but curled his hand into a fist before he could pull it out of his pocket. Even if he did call, there was no way Neku would pick up—and even if he did, what would Sanae say? Neku knew the truth now, and had reacted about as well as Sanae had always expected that he would. At this point, the only thing Sanae could hope for was that Neku wouldn't tell Joshua, and even on that front, the future didn't look bright.

Sanae let his hand drop to his side and walked over to pick the crumpled Secret Reports off the coffee table. It was only then that he noticed one page left in the box where Neku had found them, accidentally separated from the others, evidently having escaped Neku's notice. It contained only four lines:

_One last thing. To the Composer's pick._

_Neku Sakuraba . . ._

_The future you must choose is within you._

_I am glad to have had the chance to meet you._

Sanae dropped onto the sofa, and put his head in his hands.


End file.
